South Norwalk Electric Works goes Live with CIS Infinity

CIS Infinity in full operation to handle the Billing and Customer Management needs for the Second Taxing District, South Norwalk Electric Works.

Toronto, Canada. January 16, 2003

Advanced Utility Systems Corporation (Advanced) announced today that the South Norwalk Electric Works (SNEW), the electric provider for the homes and businesses in South Norwalk, Connecticut, has gone live using CIS Infinity® as their Customer Information System. The South Norwalk Electric Works is owned and operated by the Second Taxing District. They have replaced an older CIS solution in order to upgrade the functionality, performance and reliability of the software.

SNEW was able to complete a relatively quick implementation, approximately 7 months in duration. This was made possible through an implementation team of core, expert users, who quickly learned and tested CIS Infinity and disseminated that information to the rest of the user group. This group received the initial training on the system, and then took on the role of project leaders, completing not only additional training, but also vital testing and project management roles.

The rapid methodology was also greatly enhanced by the decision to avoid customizations in the software, relying instead on the set-up of control forms and tables to capture SNEW's' unique electric operating conditions. The main area of complexity in the implementation focused on SNEW's multi-tiered electric rates and taxes.

The results have exceeded expectations. Kevin Barber, the Director of Information Systems, who led the search for a new CIS solution, and acted as project manager for the implementation, commented, "CIS Infinity has now been live for a few months, and we are extremely happy with the overall system performance. The user-friendly nature of the system has pleased all our users as they quickly became at ease using the system. We are also very pleased with the relationship we have built with Advanced. They are very professional to work with, and we have an excellent rapport. We are currently investigating other projects where we can use CIS Infinity."

Kevin Barber added "Our next step is to use CIS Infinity to handle the billing for the roughly 9,000 water accounts operated by the Second Taxing District Water Department. We are working to more closely tie the operations of the electric and water operations."

Patricia Sorbara, the President and CEO of Advanced commented on use of CIS Infinity at the Second Taxing District. "The move to CIS Infinity provided a major improvement over their existing solution. Of particular importance are the benefits they can now achieve in the areas of collections, through the use of the new collections module, added cashiering options and significantly tightened security - all important features for the Second Taxing District."

South Norwalk Electric Works provides electric services to 6,000 accounts in South Norwalk. They are a municipal corporation, owned by the Second Taxing District, which was created in 1913, to oversee electric and water operations in South Norwalk, East Norwalk, West Norwalk, Rowayton, Silvermine and Wilton.

Advanced is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Harris Computer Systems that provides
Customer Information and Billing solutions exclusively to utilities and municipalities. Harris is a leading provider of financial
management and Customer Information Systems (CIS) software solutions.
Since 1976, Harris has focused on providing feature-rich and robust
turnkey solutions to all levels of local government as well as public
power and water markets throughout North America. Harris' focus is on
creating long-term relationships with our customers and ensuring that we
meet the changing needs of our customers over time. For further
information on Harris Computer Systems, please visit our website at
http://www.Harriscomputer.com, or call 888-847-7747.

Northern Kentucky Water District:"Our customers needed a seamless upgrade. We had more confidence in the Advanced strategy than any other vendor's -- their implementation and conversion process were designed to flex for a unique situation like ours."

City of Bellevue:"Throughout the 10-month conversion and implementation project, Advanced brought excellent people to the table, and we've arrived at the end of the project with all our requirements met."